Legal Notices

Helpline:
Lucie Wigham, Head of Complaints
Email: complaints@freeths.co.uk

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients, however, we accept that sometimes that service might fall short of expectations and our professional standards. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to learn and improve.

All complaints will be taken seriously and investigated promptly, objectively and at no charge to you.  Personnel involved in the complaints process are legal and/or risk & compliance specialists who will respond fairly and impartially and will aim to resolve your complaint at the earliest possible opportunity.

If you have a complaint about the service we have provided you please follow this procedure:

Step One: Please try and resolve your complaint by contacting the lawyer assigned to work for you.

Step Two: If you are not satisfied with the way they deal with your complaint, or if you do not feel comfortable raising your complaint with the matter lawyer, please contact the nominated complaints Partner named in your client contract. 

Step Three: Following that response if you then feel that we have still not dealt with your complaint satisfactorily, please write to Lucie Wigham, Head of Complaints, at Cumberland Court, 80 Mount Street, Nottingham NG1 6HH; or complaints@freeths.co.uk; or telephone 0330 100 1014 with details of your complaint.

Your complaint will be investigated and considered impartially and at no charge to you. If your complaint proceeds to Steps Two and Three, we will ensure that those who deal with your complaint have not been directly involved with the legal work to which your complaint relates.

At steps two and three the following timetable will apply:

1: We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within seven days of receiving it.

2: We will investigate your complaint within 28 days of receiving it. This will involve reviewing the response of the person who acted for you and reviewing the file. We may also want to discuss the complaint with you either on the telephone or at a meeting. 

3: If we do not hear from you within 28 days, we will assume that you are happy with the outcome of our investigations.

We will make every effort to comply with these timescales. If there are circumstances which will mean it is difficult for us to comply with them, eg illness or holiday of key individuals, we will write to tell you.

We will make every effort to comply with these timescales. If there are circumstances which will make it difficult for us to comply with them, eg illness or holiday of key individuals, we will write to tell you.

Our responses
We will respond to your complaint using the same means of communication that you have used in your communication with us unless you indicate otherwise.

We will endeavour to respond to your complaint at the earliest possible opportunity.

Remedies
If we uphold your complaint in whole or in part we may:

• Offer an apology; and/or
• Offer to reimburse invoices paid in whole or in part; and/or
• Offer to write off unbilled time in whole or in part; and/or
• Offer compensation

If you are satisfied with the outcome of your complaint and you accept any offer made, we will action that remedy promptly and any monetary refund/payment will be made within 14 days of acceptance.

Legal Ombudsman
If you are not satisfied with the way we have handled your complaint you may be able to ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. This applies if you are an individual, a business with fewer than 10 employees, a charity or trust with a net income of less than £1m, or if you fall within certain other categories (you can find out more from the Legal Ombudsman).

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, you must take your complaint to them within six months of receiving a final response to your complaint from us and, within one year from the date that:

• you first made your complaint about the act (or failure to act); or
• you should have known about the act (or failure to act) that your complaint is about.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk
Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9am to 5pm
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.co.uk
Write: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH

Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Solicitors Regulation Authority can also help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or another characteristic. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Other
If we are not able to settle your complaint, and it relates to a contract we entered with you online or by other electronic means, you may be able to send your complaint to a certified alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider in the UK via the EU ‘ODR platform’.

The ODR platform, which is available for disputes in the UK and abroad, is an interactive website for consumers and traders who want to sort out disputes relating to online contracts for goods or services.

The website address for the ODR platform is http://ec.europa.eu/odr/

There are other complaints bodies (such as ProMediate) which are competent to deal with complaints about legal services if both you and we agreed to use this type of scheme. 

Helpline:
Nick Taylor, Client Relations Partner
Email: complaints@freeths.co.uk

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients however, we accept that sometimes that service might fall short of expectations and our professional standards. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

All complaints will be taken seriously and investigated promptly, objectively and at no charge to you. Personnel involved in the complaints process are legal and/or risk & compliance specialists who will respond fairly and impartially and will aim to resolve your complaint at the earliest possible opportunity.

If you have a complaint about the service we have provided you, or the conduct of one of our solicitors please follow this procedure:

Step One:
Please try and resolve your complaint by speaking with the lawyer assigned to work for you.

Step Two:
If you are not satisfied with the way they deal with your complaint, or you do not feel comfortable raising the concern with them, please contact the Client Relations Partner named above and in your client contract.

Your complaint will be investigated and considered impartially and at no charge to you. If your complaint proceeds to Step Two we will ensure that those who deal with your complaint have not been directly involved with the legal work to which your complaint relates.

If your complaint proceeds to Step Two and relates to the Client Relations Partner this will be referred to the Head of Claims & Complaints.

At Step Two the following timetable will apply:

1. We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within seven days of receiving it.
2. We will investigate your complaint within 28 days of receiving it.  This will involve reviewing the response of the person who acted for you and reviewing the file.  We may also want to discuss the complaint with you either on the telephone or at a meeting.  
3. If we do not hear from you within 28 days of our response, we will assume that you are happy with the outcome of our investigations.

We will make every effort to comply with these timescales. If there are circumstances which make it difficult for us to comply, eg illness or holiday of key individuals, we will write to tell you.

Our responses

We will respond to your complaint using the same means of communication that you have used in your communication with us unless you indicate otherwise. 
We will endeavour to respond to your complaint at the earliest possible opportunity.

Remedies

If we uphold your complaint in whole or in part we may: 

• Offer an apology; and/or
• Offer to reimburse invoices paid in whole or in part; and/or
• Offer to write off unbilled time in whole or in part; and/or
• Offer compensation.

If you are satisfied with the outcome of your complaint and you accept any offer made, we will action that remedy promptly and any monetary refund/payment will be made within 14 days of acceptance.

We recognise that Alternative Dispute Resolution Regulations have implemented ADR/EDR Directive 2013/11/EU to promote alternative dispute resolution as a means of redress for consumers in relation to unsatisfactory services. We have however chosen not to adopt an ADR process.

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (the SLCC)

If after that you are not satisfied with the way we have handled your complaint you may be able to ask the SLCC to consider the complaint. You should do this using their SLCC online complaint form >

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the SLCC will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have and your complaint relates to service or conduct you must contact the SLCC within 3 years of the service ending, or within 3 years of the date when you could reasonably have been made aware of the conduct about which you are complaining. If you make a complaint after the 3-year deadline, the SLCC is unlikely to be able to consider the complaint unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If you would like more information about the SLCC, please contact them.

Visit: www.scottishlegalcomplaints.com
Call: 0131 201 2130
Email: enquiries@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk
Write: SLCC 12-13 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, EH2 2AF

The Law Society of Scotland
The Law Society of Scotland deals with complaints in respect of solicitors conduct, as opposed to service. All complaints must first be submitted to the SLCC as detailed above and they will refer relevant complaints to the Law Society of Scotland.

1.1 Freeths LLP (registered in England and Wales OC304688) is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) number 384855. Our registered office is Cumberland Court, 80 Mount Street, Nottingham, NG1 6HH.  Freeths LLP provides its services subject to its Terms of Business, a hard copy of which is available on request.

1.2. Freeths LLP is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). However, we are included on the FCA’s register so that we can carry out Insurance Distribution Activity (IDD), which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts.  Our authorisation can be confirmed on the FCA register at https://register.fca.org.uk/ or by contacting the FCA on 0800 1116768.

1.3. Insurance Distribution Activity is an exempt regulated activity as defined in section 325(2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 which may, as a result of Part XX of that Act be carried on by Freeths LLP as members of a profession supervised and regulated by the SRA, our designated professional body.

1.4. If you have any complaints in relation to the insurance distribution activity that we carry out for you, please contact Lucie Wigham who is based at our Nottingham office on 0345 050 3606 or by email to lucie.wigham@freeths.co.uk. If we are unable to resolve the problem between us, the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) are responsible for complaints (the LeO deals with complaints by consumers and very small businesses).  For guidance on how to report a problem to the SRA, visit their website http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems.page or call them on 0370 606 2555.  The LeO can be contacted by telephone on 0300 555 0333 or you can complete an online form on their website http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/contact-us/.

1.5. We do not have any direct or indirect holdings which represent more than 10% of the voting rights or the capital of an insurance broker, an insurer or any individual or organisation carrying out insurance business (an ‘Insurance Undertaking’).

1.6. No Insurance Undertaking or parent of an Insurance Undertaking has any direct or indirect holdings which represent more than 10% of the voting rights or capital of Freeths LLP.

1.7. We do not receive any commission or financial incentive for arranging contracts of insurance.

1.8. We do not provide any personal recommendations for contracts of insurance.

• Freeths LLP terms of business can be found here >
• Freeths Scotland LLP terms of business can be found here >
• Freeths Trustees Limited terms of business can be found here >

• We will pay interest, or a fair sum in lieu of interest, to clients or third parties on any client money we hold on their behalf.
• Money received by clients or third parties will normally be held in our general client account in which amounts for different clients and matters are pooled.
• We will not pay interest:
  • on money we are instructed to hold outside a client account in a manner that does not attract interest, eg cash held in our safe;
  • where the amount of interest is less than £25 in the period of a month;
  • where we come to a different arrangement, in writing, with the client or third party for whom the money is held.  Where we do so, we will provide sufficient information to enable the client or third party for whom the money is held to give informed consent); or
  • where clients ask not to receive interest eg for religious reasons.